years, arrived at last at the recollection of her povero sub-lieutenant.  She then said, ‘Was there ever such virtue?’ (that was her very word) and, being now a widow, gave him apartments in her palace, reinstated him in all the rights of wrong, and held him up to the admiring world as a miracle of incontinent fidelity, and the unshaken Abdiel of absence.

“Methinks this is as pretty a moral tale as any of Marmontel’s.  Here is another.  The same lady, several years ago, made an escapade with a Swede, Count Fersen (the same whom the Stockholm mob quartered and lapidated not very long since), and they arrived at an Osteria on the road to Rome or thereabouts.  It was a summer evening, and, while they were at supper, they were suddenly regaled by a symphony of fiddles in an adjacent apartment, so prettily played, that, wishing to hear them more distinctly, the Count rose, and going into the musical society, said, ’Gentlemen, I am sure that, as a company of gallant cavaliers, you will be delighted to show your skill to a lady, who feels anxious,’ &c. &c.  The men of harmony were all acquiescence—­every instrument was tuned and toned, and, striking up one of their most ambrosial airs, the whole band followed the Count to the lady’s apartment.  At their head was the first fiddler, who, bowing and fiddling at the same moment, headed his troop and advanced up the room.  Death and discord!—­it was the Marquis himself, who was on a serenading party in the country, while his spouse had run away from town.  The rest may be imagined—­but, first of all, the lady tried to persuade him that she was there on purpose to meet him, and had chosen this method for an harmonic surprise.  So much for this gossip, which amused me when I heard it, and I send it to you, in the hope it may have the like effect.  Now we’ll return to Venice.

“The day after to-morrow (to-morrow being Christmas-day) the Carnival begins.  I dine with the Countess Albrizzi and a party, and go to the opera.  On that day the Phenix, (not the Insurance Office, but) the theatre of that name, opens:  I have got me a box there for the season, for two reasons, one of which is, that the music is remarkably good.  The Contessa Albrizzi, of whom I have made mention, is the De Stael of Venice, not young, but a very learned, unaffected, good-natured woman, very polite to strangers, and, I believe, not at all dissolute, as most of the women are.  She has written very well on the works of Canova, and also a volume of Characters, besides other printed matter.  She is of Corfu, but married a dead Venetian—­that is, dead since he married.

“My flame (my ‘Donna’ whom I spoke of in my former epistle, my Marianna) is still my Marianna, and I, her—­what she pleases.  She is by far the prettiest woman I have seen here, and the most loveable I have met with any where—­as well as one of the most singular.  I believe I told you the rise and progress of our liaison in my